Stockholm Syndrome
by Raze Occam
Summary: (Modern AU, Elsanna.) Anna has led a sheltered existence in rural Minnesota, alone with her art history books and goldfish. But with the arrival of Elsa, a mildly gorgeous, mildly mysterious exchange student from Sweden, things might be about to change.
1. Skin Conditions

_Whelp I'm trying a fun little experiment here_

_I've never written a fanfiction that took place in a real-world location I'm intimately familiar with. So yeah. (BTW "the cities" is Minneapolis / St. Paul. they're basically one city but I'd be mauled by St Paulians for saying that irl)_

_EDIT: Now on with actual, real-live formatting!_

* * *

"Do they drive on the other side of the road?" Her mother asked, rummaging through her purse for the sixth time. Anna had been counting. It was something tangible to focus on.

"I don't think so. Like, I think that's England?" Anna squinted at the gate number again. H-12. Not H-11. That one was coming from Germany. H-8, where she'd mistakenly set her mother and herself up two hours before the flight came in. Luckily there'd been time to switch.

"Oh," she found her compact, checked her hair (again) dressed up far more than she would be at home (they rarely come into the cities), "well, as far as I know, she's not going to be driving. You'll have to help her with that."

Anna had just gotten her license a month prior, not entirely in preparation for driving their guest around, showing her the vast, empty cornfields of western Minnesota. She may or may not have racked her brain for months as to what a Swedish urbanite would find interesting in the general area of Pine City; it was little more than a clump of trees around a river, surrounded by the plains, a second-class oasis of sorts. As it was the end of the summer, all the retirees had vacated their cabins and summer homes and the town was a little more empty than usual.

It didn't matter, really. Anna was most hellbent on not making an ass of herself in front of a potential friend. She didn't have many chances to for those.

While she considered herself to be a sociable person, homeschooling had left her without (apparently) the basic skills needed to interact with people who weren't her parents. It wasn't that she didn't like a certain degree of, well, _space_, but one could only take so much of the communing with the trees and the river before succumbing to that special Norwegian brand of morosity.

Her current companion, Olaf III, the eighth in a long line of goldfish and other hardy, low-maintenance pets, was hardly a stimulating conversational partner. Anna stewed in her room with her fish and her art books, talking to effigies of Jeanne d'arc and St. Francis about Munch and how much she wanted to punch the walls in some days.

Then, posted to the local forum outside of the dingy Chinese place no one remembered the name of, was the first news of the exchange. Basic logistics, how it would behoove the town. Three first names and majors.

Her parents decided, in lieu of allowing her to attend school in the cities (for now, they said, eventually, always eventually) that they would take up the exchange offer. They felt it might make her a bit more worldly.

Said potential friend, Elsa Ahlgren, a student at the Royal Institute of Technology (which, from what Anna understood, was a prestigious institution) was looking to supplant her master's degree by working abroad, and was going to assist in some community planning project or other in their little town and standard protocol was that she live with a host family. There were two other students; both of them were boys, which was an instant deal-breaker.

Anna laughed sourly to herself.

They really didn't have to worry about that one. She hoped that when she saw Elsa in person she didn't sweat half as much as when she'd seen her photo.

She smoothed out her Twins t-shirt, which to her credit was the least undignified article of clothing she owned. She never went out enough to own anything formal. It was almost cool, in an ironic way. The thought made her gag.

"_Flight 586 arriving_, _from New York to Minneapolis with service from Stockholm._" Anna leapt up, her mother straightening her back and staring pointedly into the distance.

"Did you hear that?" Anna chirped rhetorically.

"Yes," her mother cracked a smile, "yes, I did."

They shared one of those knowing little glances where their freckles scrunched around their eyes in the exact same way, like twins born years apart.

_It's like, _Anna thought, _for the first time in-_

"He-ah, Miss Brenden?" a soft, accented voice broke her line of thought; like windchimes, through layers of cotton.

Anna looked up, expecting (hoping? Dreading?) to see the same etheral beauty she'd seen in the photo, sophisticated and graceful.

Standing in front of them was a mass of sweatshirts topped by the world's longest, rattiest scarf and a mess of platinum hair; when Anna finally located her eyes, though, she still swooned a bit-they childishly big, so blue they practically glowed. Elsa stared back owlishly for a second.

And what a stare it was.

"Hello, Elsa, dear," Anna's mother stood up, hands twitching to remove Elsa's clearly inappropriate choice of attire.

"You're, uh-" Anna cleared her throat, "you're a bit...overdressed, I think."

"Am I?" Elsa looked outside. Heat rose from the asphalt. "I might have-you see, what I read, well-ah, it does not matter. I will have them, on hand, I guess."

Anna had to cover her mouth to hold back an impolite giggle at Elsa's voice. She practically gargled over some sounds and others rolled off of her tongue like notes of music; clearly Elsa was some unprecedented mix of awkwardness and regality, evident in her poised strides getting caught on the hems of too many sweatshirts. Her knuckles were white from carrying her bags, contrasting with inkstains and the blue of blood vessels. Her skin was quite pale otherwise, and Anna found herself mildly enraptured again.

"Must be Anna, yes?" Elsa held out one of her wispy hands (it was a bit shaky, she noted) and Anna took it. She was, in fact, sweating, but Elsa was sweating even more, so they evened out. It was a lovely little moment of fluid exchange.

"Uh, yeah. And you're...Elsa," she said, as if it was the most obvious, wonderful thing in the world.

Another moment of silence followed. It was comfortable for everyone but Mrs. Brenden, who looked between them and their owlish stares.

"Well," she coughed, "now that we know you...exist, the car's out baking. Our air conditioning isn't the greatest."

Anna blinked rapidly, trying to hold her stupid grin in place as it faded.

_Uh, your gay is showing, numbnut. Why don't you just barf up some dental dams and glitter and see how that goes over?_

"Sorry," Elsa croaked, "the flight-it was very long. Hours. I am quite tired, I think."

"Oh, that's understandable. D'you want me to take your coat?" Mrs. Brenden held out an arm, and Elsa flinched slightly away.

"It is quite cold in this airplane port; I'm alright with them," Elsa smiled, "cold bothers me."

"Oooh," Anna said, "that's a really rough, uh, thing, to have here. Like-that's really…that's unfortunate."

Funny. Elsa looked like (or at least in her photo she did) she would fit in perfectly with the snow and the woods and the ice. Like some sort of abstract, wintery nymph, lost in Grant Wood's _January_. If she didn't deal with cold well she'd definitely be getting used to it, for sure. And maybe she'd eventually get used to Anna's vast collection of haystack prints, among other things.

Elsa looked back at her briefly, right in the airlock between the cold of the airport and the inferno outside. Her eyes were so wide, and then they were curling into a smile, and Elsa had _freckles_, dammit, why hadn't she noticed? And they ringed her eyes gorgeously, cascading between the wrinkles of eyelid and cheek.

"Your shirt," Elsa said, and it could have meant literally anything.

* * *

_Also I apologize for the title_


	2. Impressions

_Not gonna make a thing of updating every day. But I wasn't in class and I'm running on a creative high so yeah_

_To all of you who've given me feedback, or even just read the first chapter all the way through: Bless your faces. I hope I don't disappoint. _

_This chapter gets somewhat saucy towards the end~ You've been warned..._

* * *

Anna had cleaned her room meticulously before Elsa's arrival, but that didn't change the fact that it was terribly overcrowded. There was about five square feet of empty floorspace, a branching path between the door, her bed, and her desk, the rest of the room stacked with books (most of them coffee table editions) and papers. Olaf's fishbowl sat on a pile of ancient algebra textbooks, conspicuously unused. He swam in broken circles around the disemboweled snowman ornament at the bottom of the bowl, never having learned to swim through its gaping stomach-hole. Anna had tried teaching him, since she read goldfish could be taught tricks somehow, but it never stuck.

_I have a dumb fish. Okay. Goes with me perfectly._

Elsa, who was now properly dressed for the weather in a loose grey t-shirt and shorts, watched Olaf with rapt engagement. She wore glasses now (Anna swallowed something at the sight of them) and they kept creeping off the end of her small nose.

"So his name, it's Olaf, yes?" Elsa's eyes rolled around as Olaf darted towards the surface.

"Uh, yeah. Olaf the third," Anna mumbled, staring at anything but Elsa's downy, colorless legs, "As in, the third Olaf."

"Did something happen to the Olafs before?" Elsa began pressing a cheek to the fishbowl, squinting, as if trying to make eye contact with the fish. She somehow did it delicately enough that the bowl didn't move and Olaf didn't swim the other way.

Anna sat awkwardly on her bed, a book of Monet open in her lap and ignored. Elsa being in her room was a little stranger than she'd expected; but then she realized she'd never had anyone come in besides her parents. It made her feel dizzy, dangerous, letting this odd creature roam around in her sanctum and squint and flap its mouth at her goldfish.

"Well, you see-" Anna turned a page to look like she was still reading, "-well, we used to have this cat. Opal. She was really nasty, like, _the worst_…"

Elsa's eyes widened. The question of what monster would harm an innocent little fish hung in the air.

"...but yeah, that was only the first Olaf. We got rid of her after that. The second one was…uh, my fault," Anna winced, "but I was like ten at the time."

She felt, that by saying that, Elsa might think less of her. All she got was a long, pointed blink, before Elsa returned to being fascinated by the fish.

Elsa paused in her attempts to get Olaf to flap his lips back at her to twitch her mouth back and forth briefly in contemplation.

"My family, of course not in Stockholm, but my family owned many dogs, many horses when I was young," Elsa said quietly, "they were too big for me. Really. I like this Olaf."

Elsa, as willowy and pale as she was, didn't seem terribly suited to keeping horses. Or anything that involved going outside and being active. Anna assumed that her fragility and complexion came from spending too much time indoors, and as much as she'd been looking forward to showing Elsa the wilderness she decided to play a more protective role instead.

It was hard to believe, really, that Elsa was three years older than her, and a certified genius no less (she'd been hounded over the phone by Mensa the second she set foot on American soil). She was like a five-year-old. Perhaps she had some developmental disability. Anna wanted to ask how the photo of the charming, elegant princess had even come to be, but it seemed rude.

"Too big for you? How?"

_That came out kinda weird, huh._

"They are...how do you say...rough?" Elsa wiped her thumb over her bottom lip.

"Oh," Anna said.

"Yes," Elsa said, "but this one is pleasing. Peaceful."

"Are you…" Anna swallowed, again, _hard_, between laughing and something worse, "like, a vegetarian, or something?"

"That is…?"

"Where you don't eat meat," Anna clarified, pulling not-so-subtly on her purple wristband.

"I hate cows," Elsa replied.

* * *

Elsa's first dinner at the Brenden house, the night of her second day living there, not long after the incident with the fish, was one of the many moments yet to come where Elsa endeared herself to Anna but completely alienated everyone else.

They were having spaghetti and meatballs, because Mrs. Brenden reasoned that they should have a "regular American meal" that night, and Anna was too stupefied to correct her.

"The Swedes like meatballs, right?" She'd said.

Even though Anna couldn't tell the difference between Swedish meatballs and Italian ones, that was less important than the fact that Elsa had distinctly said she hated cows. Did that mean she didn't eat them? Or that she _relished_ eating them?

Elsa seemed to always say things without a strictly linear meaning.

They ate in silence, Elsa twirling her pasta fruitlessly around her fork, trying to gain enough leverage to bring the noodles to her mouth without getting sauce on her shirt. She blushed as she wriggled her lips in an attempt to bring outliers fully between her waiting teeth. Mr. and Mrs. Brenden looked down at their plates in pity, and Anna giggled. Elsa gave her a shy smile full of tomato sauce; it accented her flushed cheeks beautifully.

"So, Elsa," Mr. Brenden cleared his throat, "you're an engineering student, right?"

"Architecture," Mrs. Brenden corrected.

"Architecture," Elsa mumbled dryly.

"Well," he said, "well. I, uh, hear the community organizers are really lookin' forward to having you on board. Fresh viewpoints. S'like they imported some good minds from over there, eh?"

Mr. Brenden, who (in between janitorial work a couple of towns over) volunteered at the town hall, had already been acquainted with the other two boys from the institute. Kristoff and Hans, they were called. One of them was studying agriculture and the other was studying some legal practice or something. Anna didn't really figure on running into them any time soon.

"I know of Kristoff," Elsa said, "and Hans I know a small bit. He's...smart."

"Kristoff or Hans?" Mrs. Brenden reached for the pepper discreetly.

"Hans. He is-what is the word? A grass something."

"Grass something?" Anna leaned forward. Elsa was looking back at her the moment the phrase finally came to her tongue.

"A grass in the snake," she said.

"You mean…" Mr. Brenden's mouth flopped open and closed. He wasn't going to finish that sentence. Minnesota nice prevailed.

"A grass in the snake," Anna repeated, twirling her spaghetti again.

_Even when she's being mean she's adorable. _

"Hans' family are friends of my family. I do not like his...entitlement. Throws his pearls in front of pigs." Elsa grimaced. Anna's parents exchanged a private look of exacerbated discomfort and began discussing weekend plans. Anna wrinkled her nose and snorted like a pig. Elsa looked up from fumbling with her meal.

"Such sass. You're too much." Anna whispered. Elsa gave another lopsided smile, and she could see more of her teeth this time.

"What?" Her parents chimed in unison.

"Oh," Anna blinked, looking between the three of them, "too much. Uh, sauce, I mean,"_ that didn't sound gay as hell_, "Elsa, if you use that much...sauce, you noodles are gonna go everywhere."

_Smear it on her chest, and she'd make a great Rousseau._

"Hmm. But the strings are dry," Elsa murmured, eyes glinting only when they passed Anna's, "you have strange ketchup in this country."

"That's spaghetti sauce, dear," Mrs. Brenden corrected."We've, uh, got ketchup, though, if you need?"

Elsa looked as if she was pondering something deeply important.

"Anna has said, I think, and that it is true, I have too much already."

"Too much what?"

"Sauce."

* * *

_._

_Such sauce_


	3. Det Perfekte Menneske

_I somehow finished this, whoa. It's long and only has a little gayness at the beginning and end, sorry. I swear it will get gayer later on._

_Thanks to everyone who has read / given me feedback; even though I try to seem cold and aloof, I'm actually just (and I quote) "a sad little munchkin who's desperate for validation". I quoted myself. Heh._

_Also a shoutout to forkanna / Jessica-X and frozenlemoncakes for *direct* moral support. You keep me young. I'm 90% sure you're both older than me; it must be working._

* * *

Elsa undid the messy braid that normally compacted her mass of hair; the locks curled and splayed over her shoulders and chest like a million shock-blonde serpents, like gritted brush-strokes. Her bangs, which (Anna had noticed) she habitually pushed straight back, also seemed to lose their constraints and flop over her eyes, a curtain of willowy off-white. For all of two seconds, she was something wild and regal, a perfect, dynamic composition.

She gave a short huff, sending strands fluttering about. She brushed them away. With one hand she raked fingers through it, humming softly to herself, fumbling around for a brush. As she went about smoothing her hair, the delicate tendons of her arms and hands danced under her skin, a revealed underarm pulsing quietly with concentrated effort.

Anna felt like a voyeur.

"Elsa?" She called out, or whispered, or thought.

"Hmm?" Elsa responded. Anna noticed the business-grade, sleeveless blue blouse and form-hugging khakis. Bobby pins hung out of her mouth. Now she was re-braiding, but in a slightly different pattern than before. A little more complex.

Anna tried to think of the reason she'd been standing in the door in the first place.

"Do you-" she tried to figure out what to do with her hands, bringing them from her chest to her sides, "-do you have to be there at, uh, eight, or eight-thirty?"

Elsa stopped to squint at the alarm clock across the room. She seemed to realize that her naked eye wasn't enough to decipher it.

"It does not start until nine hours, I think? Or ten minutes after," Elsa said.

"Oh," Anna shifted. She clamored for reasons to stick around; Elsa clearly knew what she was doing with her hair, and if she was being honest, Anna didn't trust herself with it. Like she'd mess something up by tampering in god's domain.

"You may...come in. If you would like."

Elsa's voice was the same as it had been when she'd first heard her speak-that quality of muffled faraway-ness that she'd attributed to the layers of winter clothing was apparently something Elsa could do on her own, mouth uncovered.

Anna crossed to the bed and sat down, at the foot of it, away from Elsa and her mirror. The crumbling old vanity had been in her room previously, but had been moved to the guest room to make space for stacks of German expressionist texts.

They were silent as Elsa wrapped the braid around her head into a tight bun, deftly pinning it in place. She pulled it taut, brushed errant strands behind her ears, and once (apparently) satisfied, she began putting in her contacts.

Anna could almost see the girl in the photo. Almost.

"I really like your hair," Anna coughed out, "-not that, you know, it wasn't beautiful, before, it's...uh...what's the word?"

"Beautiful...er?" Elsa offered, blinking, decidedly confused.

"Uh...more beautiful, I think you mean-" Anna sighed, laying her hands out in the air, trying to quiet herself, "-sorry, that was weird. Ignore me."

_You've already made this weird. Don't make it any more weird by saying it's weird._

"It is fine," Elsa smiled, blushing slightly, "I am...flattened. I think?"

"Uh, 'flattered'," Anna giggled, before her face fell and she all but clapped a hand over her mouth, "not that I'm, like, telling you what to _feel_, or anything."

_You complete and utter homosexual moron._

Elsa nodded, and examined Anna for a second, opening her mouth to speak, then closing it, then opening it again. It was another perfect imitation of Olaf.

"...You know," she said, "I would not care about that."

Anna pursed her eyelids, trying to convince herself that Elsa couldn't have possibly meant what she sounded like she meant.

"What do you...mean?" she asked. Elsa scrunched up her nose; both of them looked now as if they were trying to squash their own faces into submission. Elsa grappled with some barrier of language that Anna couldn't possibly understand.

"I already, somewhat, feel like that, you could say."

"Oh," Anna said, "uh."

"S-sorry," Elsa turned around, apparently forgetting there was a mirror in front of her. She messed with her hair again, blushing and staring down at the floor.

It was eight thirty-two.

* * *

The drive out to the contractor's office had been long and silent; Anna was trying not to let their earlier conversation distract her, and Elsa was deeply engrossed in a pile of important-looking documents. Elsa had suddenly taken on an air of near-abrasive coldness, and Anna had a hard time believing it wasn't her fault.

_There was clearly some signal you missed. Maybe Swedes flirt by doing their hair in front of each other, or something. _

_ Or worse, the fact that you even saw that at all was some kind of intrusion on her privacy-shit, It's not like I can ask about it, or anything, at this point._

For the first time since Elsa's arrival, Anna was actually somewhat relieved to be parting ways with her when they pulled up to the building. Even if it meant she had a number of dull errands to run while Elsa was working and Anna was left with her thoughts.

"So, uh," Anna cleared her throat, "do you need me to, uh, go in with you?"

Elsa shook her head. She gathered her papers and adjusted her hair in the rearview mirror again.

"Okay. Uh, I'll be by to bring you lunch at one," she felt weirdly like a parent sending their child off to their first day of school, "and I'll pick you up at...five, right?"

"That is right, I think," Elsa smiled curtly at her.

As she got out of the car, Anna waved, and though Elsa looked back, she didn't return it.

* * *

_Okay. I really should have asked Elsa what kind of food she eats. _

Anna shuffled about in the grocery store, having left laundry to run down the street and having nothing better to do with herself. It was a little past ten.

_All I know is that she "doesn't like cows", and that she likes ketchup. Okay. Burgers are out of the question. Chicken burgers? Shit, better go for something vegetarian. I think. I never saw her drink milk or anything either. Maybe she's a vegan? Shit. Veggie burgers? Something not in patty form. Something Scandinavian. but then she might think I'm being patronizing, or something. Especially after I missed whatever flirty Swedish thing she meant this morning-ah, that's not relevant. Not right now. But what if I get her the wrong thing, and she takes that as like two strikes and starts to think that I'm a worthless imbecile, like that's true but she doesn't need to-_

"Carrots."

Anna jumped, nearly falling over into a barrell of kumquats.

A relatively large man stood over her; he was blond, but it took a minute for her realize it as he was completely caked in dirt. He had a bandana over his face, but a large Nordic nose poked out over the brim, conspicuously clean. His nose.

"Uh-"

He rolled his eyes.

"Behind you?"

She looked behind her. There was indeed a display of organic carrots, arranged in bushels.

"Sorry," Anna said, moving aside. He began rooting through the carrots.

"S'fine," he said.

She stood there awkwardly for a moment. She would realize later on that it would have been more prudent to simply leave.

"Wait a second…" The man turned to squint at her, pulling his bandana down. She noticed a slight accent when he said more than one word at a time.

"Uh...yes?" Anna pushed a lock of hair behind one ear.

"You're that...one girl. From one of the host families. Right?" He wiped his face with his sleeve. How it became _less_ dirty was beyond her.

"Ah-yeah, that's me. Anna Brenden. Of the house Brenden. Of Pine City. Sorry."

He squinted again. Did all Swedes squint that way?

"Why are you apologizing?"

Anna squirmed uncomfortably.

"Nothing. Sorry-" she mumbled, "shit."

_Why didn't anyone tell me I was this socially stunted? I'm learning a lot today. I wonder if this is why Elsa hates me now._

"Hm." He straightened his back, shuffling towards a display of radishes, "Kristoff, 'of the house Bjorgman'. Like you said."

"You, uh, speak really good English," Anna said, genuinely surprised. She had the distinct feeling one has when a conversation is long since dead but for whatever reason has to continue.

"You're comparing my English to Elsa's, which isn't fair...to her," Kristoff chuckled. He added a radish to his growing vegetable stockpile.

"Fair to her? Is she, you know…" Anna fumbled for a way to _not_ sound like a racist, "..._normal_ for a Swede?"

Kristoff looked offended for all of five seconds before he burst out laughing.

"Wha...what, you think we're all like that?" He snorted, "tight-asses who can barely speak English?"

_Tight-asses? Okay, if he's being literal that might be true but-_

"So most Swedish people can speak English, then," she decided to say.

"Yeah. Mostly. I'm sure most Americans speak Spanish," Kristoff responded, bagging his carrots, "-no, it's just that if we're gonna live in America it's a kinda important to learn English. Elsa's a….special case."

"Special case?" Anna was still hung up on the "tight-ass" comment, but he seemed to be more willing to share this particular line of information, which was useful. Even if he didn't know her too well.

_Neither do you. You've known her for like a week. Your raging hormones aside._

"It's a miracle they even let her _do_ this exchange. She literally flunked out of English and her parents threw a fit; got her a free pass somehow. Or that's what I heard anyway."

"That doesn't sound like her," Anna muttered involuntarily.

Kristoff stopped what he was doing. Looked at her quizzically.

"How so?" he asked, the implication in his voice not lost on Anna.

She thought for a minute.

"She tried to spiritually commune with my goldfish."

"Huh?"

"Like she was flapping her mouth at him and stuff. And she doesn't know how to eat spaghetti. Or the difference between ketchup and spaghetti sauce," Anna laughed, a little less awkwardly, "and when we met her in Minneapolis she was wearing like fifty pounds of winter clothes."

"Elsa Ahlgren," Kristoff said slowly, "flaps her mouth at goldfish."

If that tone of voice had been used to communicate that the sun was apparently purple, it would have felt completely natural.

"Yeah," Anna giggled, "and, I mean, up till this morning I was sure she was some kind of...weird nerd. But, uh, in a good way. The best way."

"What-" He seemed distressed, oddly, "what happened this morning?"

"Oh," Anna swallowed thickly, "w-well, she got dressed for work, and she did her hair up in a bun, and then she was being really weird-like, in a _weird_ way-"

"You mean she wasn't talking at all and looked like she was filing quarterly reports or something," Kristoff deadpanned.

"Yeah."

_Something tells me this is a conversation I should have had a while ago._

"That's the Ahlgren that I know. That most people do. From the institute, anyway."

_I knew that, didn't I? I suppose I did. I would've figured it out. The actual question is_, Anna thought, _why would she be...well, the weird nerd I met her as? _

"Do you...know," Anna asked, absently turning a packet of baby spinach over in her hands, "uh...what kind of food she might eat?"

* * *

When Anna had driven up to deliver Elsa's lunch (a sensibly vegetarian salad, and a cup of soup, because it had seemed more dignified) she'd had to leave it with someone at the front desk. That was disappointing. She'd been looking forward to grilling Elsa about her first day, figuring out what food she actually liked. Instead, she'd eaten with Kristoff.

As a result of their discussion a couple of her assumptions had to be reconsidered:

Firstly, Elsa _was_ from a rich family.

"Like a trust fund you can swim in kinda rich," Kristoff had expounded.

That made sense. Elsa's regality was clearly _learned_, an enforced habit. Anna thought she might be just as clumsy as her without the bourgeoisie upbringing.

Secondly, what with the Ahlgren family being so blue blood and all, Elsa was ostensibly being groomed for a position at the head of their engineering firm.

_How...cliche. So she's letting herself go because her yuppie parents are on the other side of the globe? But, _duh_, they would hear about whatever went on with Elsa's work. So like she has to keep it up for that?_

Her ability to make an inference was hindered by Kristoff's personal distance from Elsa; he talked about her the way Von Trier talked about America, with vagueness and disdain. It was unclear how much of her he understood based on the information he had.

Anna was sure that if he got to know the side of her that Anna did, they'd be fast friends in their weirdness. He'd casually mentioned sharing carrots with horses (he worked with them, apparently) and that was actually a little weirder than the goldfish thing. Probably.

At five o'clock, Anna stood waiting outside the office, watching Elsa have a final conversation with a group of fat, old Scandinavian men in suits. She noticed that the one young man in the group, a redhead with sideburns (_odd stylistic choice_, she'd thought) was mediating the discussion somehow. Elsa would turn to him continuously while speaking, and each time he would say something to the others.

When the group finally split, Elsa looked up to meet Anna's eyes; for a split second she saw her tiredness and frustration and Anna could hardly recognize them.

But within a fraction of a second, they'd softened again, and she all but waved with her cheekbones. What she saw in that literal instant wasn't the face of someone who hated her guts, as she'd believed all that morning, but someone who was genuinely glad to see her.

Anna couldn't have stopped the stupid smile that spread across her face if she'd tried.

So when Elsa stepped out and walked curtly towards the car with a low grimace, Anna became all too aware of their differences in mood.

"They are all idiots," Elsa murmured, dropping heavily into the front seat. Anna pulled them out of park and hummed in affirmative.

"Except for the red-haired guy, right?" Anna chuckled brokenly. She had spoken with him the most amicably, from what she had seen.

"What?" Elsa blinked, "Is it Hans you mean?" She groaned. "He is the biggest."

"What?" _Hans?_

"The largest idiot."

"Oh," Anna looked pointedly at the road, "the snake-in-the-grass, right?"

Elsa seemed confused for a moment.

"Yes," she answered, "what you said. He must also be my…he must speak for me, when the law men...? Are around."

_Okay, that frustration makes sense now._

"So he's your interpreter," Anna said.

"Yes."

"Huh. That sucks."

_Thank god she hates him. If she didn't, I might have slightly _less_ than a snowball's chance in hell. From what I know about masculine sex appeal his sideburns probably have it._

"I'm not sure what this means?"

"Hm?"

"Is not 'sucks' a referral to the mouth?" Elsa asked.

"Uh, it means...y'know, that something's awful. Or bad. Do you know 'awful'?"

"Yes, I know awful," Elsa sighed, throwing her head back in exhaustion, "Hans sucks. He sucks a lot."

Anna giggled in spite of herself.

"So it wasn't a good experience, huh?" She offered.

Elsa thought hard for a moment.

"It is an experience," she drawled with a bitter yawn, "that I hope to understand in a few days."

She promptly fell asleep. Anna didn't look, for fear of wanting to, and for fear of crashing the car into a tree.

* * *

_I just realized that most of the references in this chapter are to Danish arthouse cinema instead of art history. Whoops. _

_Oh well, sometimes those go together. Except not ever, really. _

_Murrr._


End file.
